Thursday, May 11, 2017

Stealing from the Best: Dr. Fate and The Ship of Ishtar

I just finished reading A. Merritt's
The Ship of Ishtar, and while
there's going to be a review for it soon, I stumbled
onto something fascinating about it.

The Ship of Ishtar
was first serialized in Argosy starting in 1924. Among the most
important facets of the story is Babylonian
mythology. Indeed, the main character, John Kenton, is described as
being able to read cuneiform as well as English. This is impressive,
because cuneiform had only really been reliably deciphered by modern
scholars in the 1800s. Roughly less than a hundred years before
Ishtar was published.
Mesopotamian history and culture was new and fresh in the Western
world because scholars were now able to actually study more than
architecture, pottery, and what their neighbors said about them.

Kenton's
most significant mystical ally is the Mesopotamian god of wisdom and truth,
Nabu. In the book, Nabu's color is blue, and Kenton makes good use of
a sword blessed by the god once the archaeologist returns to the ship to rescue the
red haired priestess of Ishtar, Sharane, from an evil priest of
Nergal.

In
1940, DC comics published More Fun Comics
#55, in which a blue-clad archaeologist named Kent
Nelson, who is a champion of Nabu (revealed in issue 67) equipped with his magical items, rescues an
initially red haired woman named Inza (who would eventually become
his wife) from an ancient sorcerer.

That can't be coincidence.

Kent Nelson became Dr. Fate, a
prominent 40s super hero, one of the first tights-clad “Super
Wizards” (as opposed to mystics like Zatara from 1938 who fought
crime in their stage regalia). Fate's crimefighting career expanded
greatly from his origins, encountering numerous ancient magical
threats, being a founding member of the Justice Society and passing
down the Helmet of Nabu first to his wife and then a succession of
less memorable pupils. There were even a few times when Nabu himself
acted as little more than a cape, gloves, and helmet. The Babylonian
heritage of Nabu is eventually lost, instead tying him to ancient
Egypt to better synergize with the likes of Hawkman and Black Adam.

Unlike
Kenton, who is a two-fisted man of action, all incarnations of Dr.
Fate are dedicated magicians who sit among the highest spellcasters
of the DC universe. Though Kent Nelson was just as happy to throw
some punches around in the 40s as he was to cast spells.

Still,
the similarities between the two characters can't be ignored. I don't
even think that they're a coincidence, since Dr. Fate's creator, the
insanely prolific Gardner Fox (1911-1986) said that he particularly
liked Merritt in an early 70s interview. There's your smoking gun. A
fan of Merritt couldn't have been ignorant of The Ship of
Ishtar. Not with it being
Merritt's most popular work.

Fox
himself would go on to write for pulp magazines in the 40s and 50s
and then novels, though his largest body of work was in comics. Like
Merritt, Fox himself would serve as an influence on Dungeons &
Dragons, appearing in the Appendix N list of the AD&D Dungeon
Master's Guide in 1979.

Does
this cheapen Dr. Fate? I don't think so. For starters, Fate's initial
design by Howard Sherman is outstanding, and in the visual medium of
comics, that matters a great deal. The two characters also diverge
considerably, with Fate getting into some truly weird (not
necessarily good) adventures in the 80s and 90s. Its derivative in a
good way, taking a nugget of an idea (Nabu, god of wisdom selecting a
mortal champion) and running with it in a vastly different direction intended for
ongoing adventures.

I
actually appreciate Dr. Fate a little more now than just as magical powerhouse who makes cool guest appearances, knowing what kind of
a literary heritage he has.